Audit and Finance Committee (AFC) Meeting Transcript – 12/11/2024 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 12/11/2024 6:00:00AM Original Air Date: 12/11/2024 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [9:31:13 AM] Good morning everyone. I'm Alison alter and I'm chair of the audit and finance committee. I'm joined on the dais by vice chair Leslie pool and council member Ryan alter. Council member Fuentes will be joining us shortly. We have a packed agenda, and so we're going to be going pretty quickly this morning. We do have several speakers, and I'm glad to see folks are here. I do, just in case, want to assuage folks that we are not going to be proposing disbanding the immigrant affairs committee or I'm assuming. And so I just know that there may be some folks here to speak on that. And so if you want to be briefer, we know that you have, you know, met and whatever. I just know that there's several of you who are here for that. You're welcome to speak and, and whatnot. But I just want to assuage you of that because I [9:32:13 AM] assuage you of that because I understand several of you are here for that, or at least that's not my intention. Okay. So we have a lot of speakers. We have several items. It is now 9:32 A.M. On the 11th. I didn't say that. And we will begin with our remote speakers. The clerk do you want to call those, please? You'll have three minutes each. And again, you don't need to take the whole three minutes, especially if you're talking about the commission's. They are going to call our remote speakers first of all. And then they're going to take our crystal. >> Gomez, go ahead and unmute and provide your testimony. >> Great. Thank you so much. My name is crystal Gomez. I'm an immigration attorney and former chair of the commission on immigrant affairs. I served on the commission from 2016 until 2023. I'm really encouraged to [9:33:14 AM] 2023. I'm really encouraged to hear that the dissolution of the commission is not on the agenda and not moving forward. I did want to speak about how important it is to have the commission and to have it be fully appointed so that they can meet, and it's easier to meet quota or quorum. During my time on the commission, I saw that body be instrumental in the creation and implementation of a lot of different important programs like the enhanced library cards, legal services, and the creation of a program manager position in the equity office. And this is work that's going to be incredibly important as we move forward. And a lot of families in Austin are going to be either facing deportation or worried and pushed back into the shadows. And we need a functioning commission. And more than that, we need to kind of match our sister cities in places like Houston and Dallas and San Antonio, who have entire city offices dedicated to [9:34:15 AM] city offices dedicated to ensuring that the quality of life of the immigrant community in their cities is good. And instead, in Austin, we have one city staff position and then 12 volunteer commissioners that meet once a month if they can get quorum together. And that's if the city council is appointed, all of those positions. So I just really want to encourage council to make sure that they stay up to date on those appointments. And if a vacancy comes up, getting someone else in the pipeline to so that the commission is able to meet its quorum. And I'll also push forward the idea of trying to create an actual staffed office that deals with these issues, instead of it all landing on the back of 12 volunteers. Thank you, thank you. >> Next remote speaker. >> I do not have a specific speaker with a phone number that we have recorded. However, if Andrea black or Karen Munoz is online right now, please unmute. [9:35:16 AM] online right now, please unmute. >> Okay. >> Well, we'll come back to them. If they if they log in, they may have been they may have popped off given what we said. Is that someone there? >> I think so. Is that Andrea black or Karen Munoz? >> Okay. Karen is here. Okay. >> Karen, if you would like to go, you have three minutes. >> Thank you. Yes. I'm sorry. Good morning. My name is Karen Munoz. I work for Latino justice, a nonprofit civil rights organization with offices in Austin, Texas. I did call to or I was originally calling to discuss the commission on immigrant affairs and encourage you all to not dissolve the commission. I'm very glad to hear that the commission will not be dissolved. And I applaud you all for that decision. I agree with the previous speaker, miss Gomez, that we should instead, the commission should be strengthened, that the city [9:36:16 AM] be strengthened, that the city should do more. I think that creating a city office, a staff office is a great idea, but I will end my comments there because I'm glad to hear that it's not going to be dissolved today. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> We have no more remote speakers at this time. >> Great. Thank you. We'll now move to public communication for in person. Karen, I apologize if I mispronounce a last name here, and then I'm going to call Peggy Morton your next. So if you can come on down. So you're ready. That would be great. Please. Good morning. >> My name is Karen Mckee. Thank you. And I'm known professionally as Karen Crawford. And I served on the commission for close to eight years and was its chair from 2017 to 2021. And thank you. I'm glad to hear that it will most likely not be dissolved. But I do want to reiterate what crystal Gomez said, and also request that you support and strengthen the commission at a moment like this. It's very, very important. When I served on the commission, we had enormous difficulty facing quorum issues [9:37:17 AM] difficulty facing quorum issues as well. It was very difficult to get people who weren't showing up to meetings to be removed from the commission and they and get replacements for them. I also wanted to mention that I was a Travis county representative for the commission, and knowing that it was a long process to fill that position, I actually got in touch with Travis county, I think a good six months before my term expired to try and get the vacancy filled. I reached out to judge brown's office for months before my term expired. They would respond to my email but not follow up. I remember at one point they responded by telling me how I could renew my term, which isn't what I was going to do because I was terming out. I'm saddened to know the position was never filled. It's been two and a half years, and there's a lot of promise of having a county representative on the commission because many of the immigrant community members work in Austin live outside of the Austin city limits. However, it's not working, and it's actually affecting the ability for the commission to have quorum. So I would not want that that position to continue to remain [9:38:17 AM] position to continue to remain vacant. I won't go into the work that we did because crystal mentioned it earlier. I did want to add a couple of things which was creating relationships with law enforcement, which was very important to the immigrant community, community, and also seeking funding for naturalization clinics, which is a very positive move forward. It's important work, and it has to be supported, especially with the looming threat coming up in the next administration of mass deportations, including of mixed status families. People are scared and they're concerned and they need the support of their city. Austin needs to do whatever they can do to support the immigrant community, not only in keeping the commission on immigrant affairs, but also really prioritizing placing members on it so there can be consistent quorum, and also prioritizing the commission in filling vacancies. And also, I would recommend eliminating the Travis county position since two and a half years have gone by without that position being filled. This the city needs the commission to do its work, and I would love to see us have an [9:39:18 AM] would love to see us have an immigrant affairs office as well. It's well overdue. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, and thank you for your service on the commission. And after Peggy Morton will be Alicia torres. >> Good morning, and thank you so much for taking it off the agenda. But I definitely feel a need to speak. I'm a retired public school teacher. >> For the record, if you want to just say your name yourself. Oh, I didn't say it. >> Yes. Hi, I'm Peggy Morton, and I'm a retired public school teacher who has been volunteering, working in solidarity with immigrants for the last since I retired 15 years ago. Mostly I've been working with the Austin sanctuary network, where we work to stop deportations and. So I've never even heard of this particular commission about immigrant affairs. And so I bring that up just to say, you know, get the word out if you're having a problem filling those positions. And I'm going to kind of disagree with I mean, I [9:40:19 AM] of disagree with I mean, I understand I'm going to respectfully disagree with the last speaker who said that they should cancel the Travis county position. Now is the time the Travis county needs to also have a representative in in addition to the city council members, because, I mean, they've got kafa, you know, they're only offering three shifts of attorneys out of 21 shifts. So they are dragging their feet on things. They need to be made more aware of what's going on with immigration. So, I mean, it's now is not the time to sleep through the revolution when marginalized communities are under attack. We need to provide resources to the immigrant community to let them know that our local government supports them and upholds their humanity. Have I mean, you've got to start working together. I did call, I spoke with my staff member of my city council member, Paige Ellis, and I learned that she doesn't recommend people to this committee because it's not one of the ones she works with. Well, any city council member is [9:41:20 AM] Well, any city council member is having a problem being able to recommend someone. Please reach out. No one's ever reached out to me, nor hundreds of people in this community like me that care and want to see something better happen. So I think I'll just go on and stop there and say that. Please recognize how important this is. Obviously you do because you took it off the agenda, but the fact that it's the first time I've ever heard of this and I was alerted to it and it's scary. So these are scary times. And our immigrant friends who've built this community deserve a lot of support. So thank you. >> Thank you. Before we go to the next speaker, I just want to clarify that by I think it's by code. The clerk's office has to bring it to audit and finance. If there's a certain amount of absences that have happened at a commission, immigrant affairs commission has managed to, you know, when that happened, we had them alert all the council members. The council members got enough of their appointees in and the commission met. So this is an item that's on our agenda [9:42:21 AM] is an item that's on our agenda because by code, it has to come to us for us to then say what happens once we have a certain number of times when quorum hasn't been met, no one on this, no one on this committee put it on the agenda because they wanted to disband it. It's a just a process that has to has to happen for us to discuss it and for us to be aware and so that we can raise the alarm with our colleagues to get the positions filled. Thank you. Next speaker, please. And after that, I'll be able. >> Hello. My name is Alicia torres. Again. Thank you for that clarification. Council member. And I'm also happy to hear that I was also under the wrong impression, right, that there was an intent on part of the city to dissolve this commission. And I think that speaks to the situation that a lot of the migrants themselves [9:43:23 AM] lot of the migrants themselves and a lot of migrant supporters, migrant community supporters, find themselves in in a moment where we really are in, in fear. We're really trying to figure out who's really going to stand behind us in in hearing Wright the intention and the process of why this this conversation is being had today, I want to ask that maybe this is an invitation to council members to actually be continue being the leaders in creating infrastructure for community, for migrant communities to have a voice. And I am I would say, I mean, I'm not as familiar with the processes, but maybe I do think that this is a moment in which we have to lean in and cast the net wider, and not just invite people that are have the capacity and the resources really privilege, you know, to be in spaces like this, in times when people are usually working, [9:44:23 AM] when people are usually working, this is a moment when the migrant community needs to be not just represented, but actually have a voice in, in our own, in our own future. And so what can we do to ensure that a position for the commission is actually available for someone that's directly impacted? Right. I've been to some meetings. I know that there is interpretation if it's requested for people that are there, but what if you want to participate? And this is an intimidating process, and I say this as someone who is a migrant themselves and who has is still intimidated to this day to engage in this, in this processes. And so what can we do to put this out in the Spanish language media, in the churches, those places that are filled with natural leaders that might just feel that this is not a place where they can, at best, advocate for themselves. So I will be happy to talk to any of the council members that might want to lean in into how do we get more direct representation, [9:45:25 AM] get more direct representation, having people speak for us and in our best interest. It's always good and appreciate it, but nothing like the voices of those directly impacted to know this is actually what works for us. This is what we actually need and this is how we move and speak, not just for the community, but move and speak with community. So it's an invitation into doing that. And I appreciate the recognition that this is a moment when we need not just commissions, but possibly just like we were successful in having the immigration immigrant affairs. >> Thank you. >> Please meeting form should also be a an actual office. Thank you, thank you. >> And after Bob will be Valentin Padilla. >> Hey, y'all. Nice to be here. I'm Bob Leibel. I am a district seven resident. I so it's also it's heartening to hear that we're not actually going to dissolve the commission on immigrant affairs. For the last [9:46:25 AM] immigrant affairs. For the last couple of years, I have been working with human rights watch, documenting Texas's border program operation lone star, including the building of military bases in border communities, the use of Texas National Guard members and military members firing pepper ball munitions, and constructing razor wire that has harmed children. Asylum seekers at the border, and the creation of a separate and profoundly unequal criminal legal system for migrants. And I say all that because there have been multiple stories over the last few weeks documenting how the incoming federal administration is planning to use Texas's border policies as a model for internal enforcement, including the use of the military in American cities. And I think that for at that moment, right, it sends a very negative message, both [9:47:27 AM] very negative message, both functionally and symbolically, right, to be talking about the dissolution of a of a committee like the commission on immigrant affairs. So I certainly urge us to, as the previous speakers have said, to reinvigorate the committee rather than than considering dissolving it. I also I've noticed that we don't have a current person serving in district seven on the commission. Council member pool, I know this is your last few weeks, but if there. But I'd be happy to work with your office on trying to find somebody to serve in that role. And certainly working with whoever your successor is in that role as well. So really appreciate the reinvigoration of the commission, the work towards creation and creating an actual office here at the city. Yeah. So thank you very much. >> Thank you. Chair. Yes. Just just a quick response. >> Thanks, Bob. I appreciate that I have had an appointee to that commission all along. But [9:48:29 AM] that commission all along. But earlier this year, my commissioner said that he wasn't able to continue on. And because my time was short, we were not able to find somebody else. And maybe some of the procedure that we're following here today, this item is on our agenda, because our rules tell us that we have to have this conversation because of the lack of meeting. The whole point of the commissions is for them to meet and deliberate and advise us. And this is not the only commission that's on the agenda for this conversation today. So we're not singling anybody out. But this happened because the commissioners weren't able to be there to make quorum to meet. So we are responding to that as, as we need to by procedure. I imagine that the light that's being shined is going to have the proper the proper impact. In fact, I'm pretty darn sure that this this commission will get its appointees, and they will be folks who will be able to attend [9:49:29 AM] folks who will be able to attend the meetings, and we do them virtually as well. So it's, you know, we're not requiring people to come in. Great. I know these are difficult times. So thank you, Bob, also for offering to serve. I appreciate that. And we will have a new district seven representative probably sometime Saturday, so we'll know where we're headed at that point. And thank you for coming today to express your support. Really appreciate that. >> Thank you. Next speaker. Thank you. >> Good morning everybody. My name is Valentin Padilla. I am a legal caseworker at American gateways. And it is an honor to be before you today. It is also an honor to be representing an organization that I hold dear to my heart. For nearly 40 years, we have been providing legal immigration assistance to the low income immigrants in central Texas. Today, I'm very grateful to hear that the immigrant affairs commission will not be [9:50:29 AM] affairs commission will not be dissolved, as I'm sure everybody else was glad to hear. But I do want to recognize that the commission has not been active recently, and it has had some vacancies. But this is not the moment to be shutting down a way to focus on the needs of the immigrant community. This is not the moment for that. Austin, as I know it, is a welcoming community to all, and this commission is one of the ways it has proven to be. American gateways is a partner with the city and serving our immigrant community, and we are so very thankful for this council, for that partnership. We ask that you keep this immigrant commission affairs commission and thank you for your considerations. >> Thank you. Jeremy Garza is our last speaker. >> Howdy, y'all. >> My name is Jeremy Garza. I live in district one. Thank you so much for this opportunity to speak. And the big relief to many folks in the office that they're not going to be dissolving the commission on immigrant affairs. But I did just want to take a quick moment to talk about the culture of [9:51:31 AM] to talk about the culture of boards and commissions, and how we might be able to strengthen the culture of boards and commissions. I've been to many events here at city hall and many of the budget town halls that city council members host during budget season, and I've heard so many city council members tell members of the public how important it is to go to the boards and commissions, to speak to the commissioners, to show up at those meetings. As one of the biggest ways in which the members of the public can engage and be public participants in the civic process. Other than coming to, of course, city council meetings, of one of the biggest ways that we can engage the community. Yet when I see how members of the public can know about commissioners, there's a lot of education that has to happen, I think, around the public, around how we can teach that civic engagement education to members of the public, but also to commissioners themselves. I often see a rotation. Of course, the spirit of rotation is very strong with our boards and commissions, especially as city council members rotate. But often what I see is a lack of a of a learning opportunity, both [9:52:32 AM] of a learning opportunity, both for members of the public and for commissioners to learn about how the city functions, about the city, different city departments that have a direct impact on the lived experiences of people every day. And I know that the city clerk does an incredible job with trainings with our commissioners around the Texas open meeting act, and how not to break the law in those regards, but in terms of how they learn how to commission the history of the city, the org chart of the city, what a commissioner can and cannot do, how to even write a recommendation to city council, what they are allowed to ask and recommend to you all and what they are not allowed to ask and recommend to you all. I really feel like resources that could be made available both to members of the public and to commissioners, in terms of regularly scheduled workshops that could be hosted at our libraries or at our parks, rec centers, or at our cultural centers as a way of civic education, both for members of the public and the commissioners, so that they can better understand the bureaucracy of the city government and in that better understanding, be more better to advise you, city council, and the important issues that impact [9:53:33 AM] the important issues that impact the communities that they represent. So if anything, I just wanted to speak to in urging to increase the resources and training capacities for both members of the public and commissioners so that we can all be better involved and know better, too, about the intricacies of our city and our government functions. So thank you so much for this time. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much to everyone who came and speak. Are there any chair alter? >> Andrea black is now available to speak remotely on this topic. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Andrea. Go ahead and unmute. >> Hello, Andrea black. Can you hear me? >> We can. Thank you. Good morning. >> Thank you. Good morning. Yes, I'm. I got on late. I was having trouble getting on, but I. So I'm relieved to hear that you're not planning to dissolve the commission. It is a critical commission in the city where I think, as you know, over 14% of the population are immigrants. [9:54:34 AM] the population are immigrants. And critical, particularly in this year where the federal administration is planning a mass deportation program using the Texas infrastructure and model as a base of operations. So we really need to be prepared to support immigrant residents in the face of all this fear mongering. So I understand that you haven't been able to meet quorum. I really support what Jeremy Jeremy Garza had to say about the, you know, the education piece so that people really understand the critical role of commissions and also an issue of recruitment. And I'd be happy to support the process for recruitment that can engage different immigrant communities and stakeholders. I've been involved in immigrant rights for about 30 years. I've been an Austin resident for 15 years. Yes. And find that this is you know, I was very disturbed to see that this was on the agenda. And it was only through last minute notice that we found out. So, yeah, really hope that there can be more of a proactive process that can engage people in a more constructive way. So [9:55:34 AM] in a more constructive way. So thank you for that. >> Thank you. Are there any more speaker alter. >> We've had two late signups if you would allow them. Bob nix would like to speak on this topic, and then Paul Robbins would like to speak on item four. >> So I think Bob nix wanted to speak about overtime is that I would prefer to speak on item six. Right. So I'm going to bring Bob up for the overtime item. And what Mr. Robbins can, we can bring him up when we do the resource management. That sounds perfect. That will keep us more on track. Thank you for reminding me. Just remind me at the appropriate time. Thank you. So thank you to all the speakers for being here. What we're going to do now is I'm going to take up our minutes, and then we'll go right to that item and we'll speak more to that. I just want to keep us in order for what we're doing. So do I have a motion to approve? The minutes moved by council member Fuentes, seconded by council member Ryan alter, seeing no objections, will approve the minutes from the November 12th meeting. Thank [9:56:34 AM] the November 12th meeting. Thank you. We will now take up item two. It's a consideration of notice that the commission on immigrant affairs has not met for more than six months, and approval of a recommendation to the city council on whether to dissolve the commission. Miss hall will will speak to us on that, and I'm sure she will reiterate. And as the as the notice suggests, this is a notice to us of this happening. We have the choice of dissolving. We have also the prerogative to get our house in order and make sure that we have all of the appointees available. And I think that would be the latter is where we're leaning. But we do have to go through the process. So, miss hall, please go ahead. >> Yes. Thank you. Chair. Good morning. Stephanie hall, assistant city clerk and as you pointed out, we are here in response to city code section two 145 B that does require us to send a notice to the audit and finance committee. If a commission fails to convene for six months, which has occurred with the commission on immigrant [9:57:35 AM] with the commission on immigrant affairs. Just a little bit of overview. The commission on immigrant affairs has struggled to make quorum for the past two years. As many have pointed out in backup, we do have a chart that shows when they were able to meet and the vacancies as well. However, recently they have been able to meet September, October and November, but prior to that they had only met four times over the past two years. This commission does have 12 seats, an additional seat that has been by Travis county. Seven members are required to attend to make quorum, and we don't see one. One single reason that contributed to this. There are several factors, and while any vacancy can certainly make it challenging, more challenging to make quorum, most of the time, there actually were enough seats to meet quorum and convene the meetings. There are, of course, attendance requirements for commissioners, but one of the kind of nuanced challenges is if a meeting is canceled, that attendance doesn't count towards their violation. That can make it challenging for [9:58:35 AM] can make it challenging for liaisons to track. And it kind of can compound the problem. However, we do train and encourage liaisons to tell us if members are not responsive or if they are consistently contributing to a lack of quorum. And we do reach out and coordinate that with the council offices directly when we're notified of that. But it can be a challenging process considering that. And there are in this case, several instances when we have some inaccurate attendance record. Right now there are three current vacancies. One of them has been mentioned is Travis county. Travis county did send us a nominee a couple months ago. However, that nominee has indicated on their application that they have been a registered lobbyist with the city, which is in violation to our code. So we're trying to work that out and coordinate between legal and county. There was also just a recent resignation. I do believe that resignation was slightly out of a bit of frustration for failure to meet, which I can certainly understand, but we are getting up to up to par on [9:59:36 AM] getting up to up to par on filling all of those seats. So that's all that? Yes. Go ahead. >> What district was the resignation? >> District one. >> Thank you. And we've reached out to the Travis county judge's office this morning and just reminded them about filling that. I will say that my recommendation is for us to not take any action here. We don't we don't need to take any action. Their meeting and contributing moving forward. I will, in response to the folks who came, say thank you for coming. Thank you for raising your voice and for those who couldn't, couldn't be here. It's always important for us to hear that our commissions are mattering and for folks to help, you know, remind us of all the things that the great ideas and projects that have come out of them. I will point out that council member harper-madison [10:00:37 AM] council member harper-madison has an item on which I'm co-sponsoring, and maybe others are having to do with professional education for council members and commissioners. That is on our agenda tomorrow. And council member Ryan alter has an item asking us to, you know, look at the commissions in various different ways. So your feedback is very timely and we are aware of that. And for those of you who are interested in serving on this commission, I encourage you to do two things. We are going to have a slew of appointments available for commissions across the board, whether it's immigrant affairs, you can be on other committees and help the immigrant communities as well, because five of us are or I guess six positions are finishing their term. There will be a lot of openings. Three of us are leaving. There will be all new appointments. But even for folks like council member [10:01:38 AM] for folks like council member Fuentes, who's reelected, her commissioner appointments all have to be remade. So it's a really good time to go into the system and apply for commissions that you are interested in. Secondly, I would encourage you to reach out to Travis county. If you're interested in serving. It's always helpful to have great people who want to serve. It does help the process go faster, and I believe that would be through judge brown's office. Councilmember Fuentes, thank you. >> I just some questions for miss hall. So in looking at the chart and thinking for preparing the chart, for us to see the number of vacancies and when the meetings were actually held and when we had cancellations, is it a matter of did the commission? Because for the majority of the last two years, there's been more than seven appointed members to the commission, so thereby a quorum could have been established throughout these last few years. Is it because of the meeting date? You know, having the commission meet on Mondays first Monday of the month? Is that the issue? That [10:02:39 AM] month? Is that the issue? That is it, you know, is it scheduling? >> That's possible. That's not been mentioned to me at all. I do believe the staffing department is here. I don't know if they have any insight on that. I'm not entirely sure what contributed to that. I don't know if it was. I don't know if it was the meeting date or if we just had communication issues about when we were meeting. I would probably have to defer to the staffing department on that. >> Yeah, I would, I encourage staff to look into if it's the need for us to get a different date that works better with the commissioners schedule, you know, certainly, as was highlighted here, we know that these next few years are going to be particularly tough on our immigrant community, our immigrant rights, our immigrant experience in Austin is an important one. I'm very concerned about our community in these next four years. And so I want to make sure that this commission is able to meet as often as possible. And that and I want to make sure that the city is supporting them in facilitating a meeting time and [10:03:39 AM] facilitating a meeting time and date that is conducive to the majority, and then also to everyone that testified. Thank you for being here today to share your comments. You know, 15%, as was mentioned of our community of austinites are immigrants. And so I certainly believe that there are many of our immigrant residents who are willing and interested in participating as a commissioner. And so I welcome your support and providing those names and recommendations to our new colleagues who will be joining the dais and to the offices that have vacancies. And certainly we want to ensure that we get really robust perspectives at the table. So we appreciate your work. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Council member Fuentes, I will add, I think that just looking at the chart for most of the time, they only had seven people. I think you, me and council member Ryan also were the only ones who had people all year. Every other council member had at least a couple meetings where their appointee had a vacancy and [10:04:40 AM] appointee had a vacancy and Travis county had a vacancy. If I'm reading the chart correctly. So I think it's much more a function of the appointments not having been made in a timely manner. And I think that we might need the clerk to be providing you have we have been doing more of it since we had a few notices, but really making sure that council offices know whether they're new and have to reappoint or whether they are continuing. I think that additional notice would be great. One more, go ahead. >> And then for those who are here, honestly, one of the most powerful things that you can do coming out of this conversation today is go online with the city clerk and put your name in the hopper and indicate that you are interested in serving on this commission, because we wouldn't know unless you raised your hand through an application or contacted a council member to say that you're interested. That [10:05:41 AM] say that you're interested. That is that that's the incoming information that's really critical. So you can fill out the application. It's pretty short, indicate which different commissions, and you can see how many there are there a lot. And there may be some other things that you're interested in. But I would urge you all who are here today and are concerned about this, to consider whether you would like to offer yourself for this volunteer public service. That's where we get the good input is from folks like you in the community. Please take the first step yourself voluntarily to sign up and put in your application so that you are notifying folks on the dais of your willingness and interest, because we otherwise. That's a really perfect way for us to know. We go in there, we see who has applied. We don't only rely on people that we already know or networks that we already have. Sometimes we want to throw and need to throw the net out further to be more inclusive and get input from more responsive [10:06:44 AM] get input from more responsive folks. You can help us with that. Thanks, chair. >> Thank you. And if you also similarly, you know, know people who may have challenges navigating the system, if you can invite them to be engaged and help us get the word out into spaces that maybe we're not getting that out to right now, that is also helpful. Great. So we will not be taking any action on item two. We have been noticed. Item three is consideration of. Notice that the college student commission has not met for more than six months, and approval or recommendation to the city council on whether to dissolve the commission. >> Thank you. Chair. Similarly, we bring this to you as a result of the requirement in code. The college student commission is a little bit unique. Their challenge is a little bit, I think, more clear that it's a vacancy issue. The they have struggled to make quorum as well for the last past two years. They hadn't convened between [10:07:45 AM] They hadn't convened between February and December. All of this year they have 15 seats. Eight of those seats are required to make quorum for them so that it is quite a challenge. And then I think one of the difficulties in the uniqueness here is that there are five area education institutions that are required to submit those nominations, and I think it might be challenging for those institutions, but it's also there's a timing issue when we get them, and we do rely on those institutions to send us the nominations before we can get the process through. We've just noticed just kind of as a casual observance, a fluctuation throughout the school year of participation. And I do think there has also been some staffing switches with the staffing of the commission that may present some challenges. I do know that doctor Eugene is here. If you have any questions, she's the executive liaison for the commission. If you have any specific things, go ahead. >> Is this commission one thing that came to light at our previous audit and finance committee with the commission is that they're not all required to meet monthly. I think the requirement is that they meet quarterly. Is that right? [10:08:45 AM] quarterly. Is that right? >> The requirement in code is for them to meet quarterly. A lot of them have adopted bylaws that say monthly. I'd have to double check on this one. I did not check on that before the meeting. Apologies, but the code says quarterly. >> Yes, that might be something we consider with this particular commission, and I can't remember council member Ryan alter what your recommendation was for this particular commission on your item, but I would encourage the this commission to either update their bylaws, revisit it, and perhaps only do a quarterly meeting. Just knowing the fluctuation amongst students and their experience at these universities would be my recommendation. >> And thank you. And I'd add to that even and say, look at the academic calendar and don't plan to meet in the summer, for example. >> But I leave it to the good offices of the folks here to end with the commission to kind of figure that out. I expect with that extra scrutiny, they'll do [10:09:46 AM] that extra scrutiny, they'll do that. >> So I would ask that doctor Eugene and the clerk's office together work with the supporting institutions to make sure that folks are appointed and to figure out a cadence that works with the student's schedules. And if they haven't met and succeeded in that within the next six months, come back. And at that point we can make a recommendation. Doctor Eugene, is that work? >> I just wanted to address you all. Thank you so much and thank you for our two awesome city managers that are going on to do bigger and better things for the city. But this commission, as our clerk has shared, we have been around for seven years and this is the first time we've had this as an issue. And one of the [10:10:47 AM] this as an issue. And one of the reasons is staffing. Secondly, this was set up to work with the schools to get students to sign up, and they meet with the students and interview students before they then forward them on to apply on the city's website. So we did have our meeting. We've had four, but the commission really wants to meet monthly, so I lean towards how they want to operate. But because we had so many seniors this year, it has really impacted us. So we are learning these lessons as we go. And we met this past Friday, the day that the commissioners have selected. They'd like to meet on Friday afternoons from 3 to 5. Yes, but we're we're back on the mend. And thank you for the [10:11:47 AM] mend. And thank you for the opportunity. Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. So if you feel like you have it under control, then we will move on to the next. >> Yes. Thank you. And just to clarify, councilwoman Fuentes, we did confirm the bylaws. They do right now. They currently are to meet monthly in their bylaws. >> Thank you. But even any of the commissions that meet monthly can just not meet. They can cancel a meeting or they can cancel the cancellation counts against them. >> They could cancel a meeting. It would only be an issue if they did a six month chunk. Then we would have to do a notice. But there's no repercussions if they cancel a meeting necessarily. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> We'll now move to item number four, proposed bylaw amendments for the resource management commission. I'm going to invite Diana Thomas to speak and chair alter. >> Yes, I believe Paul Robbins. >> I understand that I'm going [10:12:47 AM] >> I understand that I'm going to I think I believe they're in agreement. So I'm going to let I was going to let Diana present what they're doing and then have Mr. Robbins speak, if that's if that's okay. >> Good morning. Committee members Diana Thomas, deputy cfo for the city. This item is related to the resource management commission bylaws. In July, they came before this committee to propose some changes that staff was not in support of. And we postponed that item until the resource management commission and staff could meet and discuss it and come up with alternative language. And I would like to recognize that it took longer than everyone wanted. And I appreciate everyone's patience. But staff was able to meet with the aamc, and we were able to come up with alternative language, which they adopted at their last meeting, which is included in your backup, and staff is supportive of that change. >> Do you want to just I don't [10:13:48 AM] >> Do you want to just I don't know who who normally reads the language, just the main change. Sure. >> The new the new recommendation says under D review and analyze recommendations for natural gas utility rate making, franchise agreement priorities and operational policies for which the city has regulatory authority. And then under E advise the city council regarding recommendations for the natural gas utility rate making, franchise agreement priorities and operational policies for which the city has regulatory authority. >> Thank you, Mr. Robbins. Did miss hall, did you need to speak on it? Mr. Robbins, you can speak for three minutes if you'd like. >> Council. As you all know, there was a rate case that was just settled. You may not know the outcome. Between 2019 and 2025, when the rate case begins, [10:14:53 AM] 2025, when the rate case begins, there will have been a 95% increase in residential rates due to this rate problem, as well as lack of low income assistance. No comprehensive plan for climate change. Our commission is asking council to let us advise you to study these issues and let you advise. Let us advise you. Our commission approved this language from all members that attended the last meeting. I hope that you will approve the recommendations and expand our commission's purview. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Robbins. I appreciate your persistence on this issue. For my colleagues who might be, you might be the first council member that was [10:15:54 AM] first council member that was ever appreciated, appreciative that I nagged them. Well, I am truly appreciative. Paul. And for my colleagues who will be voting on this, it will come to us in January as a recommendation from the committee. So you may need to speak to it at that point in time. This is particularly important because we are going to be reviewing the franchise in the next few years, and so would benefit from having the resource management commission be able to have certain conversations with our staff over what we would want to see in that new agreement. And I think this allows for those conversations to happen in an appropriate way. And hopefully the conversations will begin shortly on on what that looks like. So I will entertain a motion to move approval of these revisions moved by council member Ryan alter, seconded by council member Vanessa Fuentes. Seeing [10:16:56 AM] member Vanessa Fuentes. Seeing no objections, those will be adopted unanimously. Thank you very much. And thank you to our staff, as the commission members for working out a compromise here that addresses everyone's concerns. Thank you. All right. Next up will be item five, city attorney's annual report regarding enforcement of lobbyist regulations. Miss Rizvi. So we have an assistant city attorney. >> Had to take the long way. >> Good morning. >> Good morning. My name is wajih Rizvi. I'm an assistant city attorney with the law department's open government and ethics division under section four 812 of the Austin city code. The law department is [10:17:56 AM] code. The law department is providing this report. It's related to compliance and enforcement of chapter four eight of the city code, which deals with the regulation of city lobbyists. You may recall that the last report that we made, the last annual report that is, was made back in December of 2023. Since then, quarterly written reports have been provided and are included as backup to item five. This annual report will cover the period of the calendar year 2024. So as you can see from the report, one referral was sent to the city clerk or by the city clerk, rather to the ethics review commission and the interim city attorney. The notice that was sent on October 31st for failure to file the July 2024 quarterly activity report, which is a requirement under chapter 486 of the city code so as to its current status. The matter is, with the [10:18:57 AM] status. The matter is, with the irc, they will have the opportunity to take action through its complaint process and based on their filings during a their findings during a preliminary hearing. The irc can then refer the matter to the law department for prosecution. We'll provide further updates as this matter progresses in our future quarterly reports to you. But really, aside from this matter, there are no other items to report on at this time, but I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. >> Thank you very much. Colleagues. Are there any questions? Councilmember pool, I know you worked on the lobbyist stuff. Did you want to add anything? Nope. All good. Great. Thank you, thank you. So we will now take up item six, the briefing on the historical drivers of overtime costs in the Austin fire department. This is a report that was required by a resolution that I added to the budget, which was asking AFD to ask the city manager to really [10:20:02 AM] ask the city manager to really look into overtime at AFD generally, and then specifically to understand whether we needed to add more firefighters in order to address the challenge. So, chief baker, good morning, madam chair. >> Madam vice chair, members of the audit finance committee, I simply bring you greetings on behalf of all of the heroic, brave women and men of the Austin fire department by simply saying, good morning and thank you for the opportunity to provide some historical data on drivers of our overtime costs. I like to believe that the Austin fire department is one of the department that represents the first line of defense for human caused or natural disaster in the city. I don't know of any calls that would take place in [10:21:04 AM] calls that would take place in the city on an emergency basis, where the fire department do not respond to. And I say that because looking at the factors that contribute to our overtime expenditures, we have several unpredictable events. Those events are weather related, whether it be ice or snow storms. Wildfire preparedness, sheltering, distributing bottled water during the events of bad weather, or when the water situation is worse than the city, as well as assisting with the immunization of our city during the covid pandemic. Here in Austin, vacancies also have challenges with us. Between our hiring process for recruit class and what I mean by that, we also have a spike in retirement here in Austin fire department and a number of members who have [10:22:04 AM] number of members who have decided of their own free will in the court to separate from the Austin fire department and pursue other careers, as well as having an additional fire station added to the department, which has increased our staffing. But we need opportunity to provide hiring process for those new ftes to staff those fire stations. We also have seen challenges in the gaps in cadet graduation. In other words, we may start a recruit class with 48 cadets, but only graduate 40 due to the rigorous training of the Austin fire department. If we look at the data also, we know that here in Austin, the fire department and we are grateful for the for Ann for staffing model that the department has, which really represent 278 positions over three shifts, for a total of 834 positions. Or in other words, we have 1096 full time employees to [10:23:06 AM] have 1096 full time employees to cover those 834 positions. But we have an average of this fiscal year of approximately 50 vacancies, which is not bad. When I talk to my colleagues across the state or across the country about vacancies in the fire service, we're doing pretty well with 50, but they give us a staffing ratio of about 1.25 fte. For every position that. Also, if we look at the backfield or the mandatory staffing of our members, the challenge we have that we have to go through and ask for voluntary members to sign up for at a time. And when that is not working, we go to a mandatory at a time list what we call the members, whether they, at home or the station. Tell them that you shall come in to work today to work overtime. Now the last option is we hold over firefighters while they still don't shift, which means they work 44 to 8 hours instead of 24 hours. This data here or this [10:24:09 AM] hours. This data here or this slide here demonstrates or shows the vacant position and the type of leave that drive our overtime. In addition to the unpredictable events that I talked about on slide one, this slide also shows routine factors that require back fields relating to leave and vacancies, as well as showing the numbers of hours of used during the fiscal year. Together, hours spent on unpredictable events and back fields are driving the need for overtime year by year. I'm going to start off with fiscal year 19 and 20. If you look at that red bar in that first bar chart, there, you will see that the number of vacant positions was high because cadet classes were smaller and graduation was delayed. The green area showed the use of [10:25:10 AM] green area showed the use of vacation and exceptional vacation leave, although a little down because the city at the time and the state and the nation was on covid lockdown. Remember wasn't using much vacation due to covid, but the yellow bar shows the workman's comp use or injuries on the on the job. During that particular year, we had less testing. Covid was new to us. We were trying to really figure out what the steps we were going to do, and we treated every covid related illness as a workman's comp claim because we know our member was out in the community responding on calls and they had a high risk of contracting covid, as well as members. When their family have covid, they stayed at home to take care of their family and try to reduce exposure not only to themselves, but to member station. With that slide does not show the injuries in 2018 was only at 2.8%, and the injuries in 2019 was only [10:26:14 AM] the injuries in 2019 was only 5%, which is before the covid time. In other words, when a rise in covid happened, our injuries or illness went up in the fire department. Also, it's important to keep in mind that once the member in fiscal year 2019 and 2020 received covid, they had to stay off an additional two weeks to make sure that the illness was completely removed from them and to minimize and limit exposure to other firefighters and to the community as well. Looking at slide the bar for 20 fiscal year 20 and 2021, we had a winter storm uri that increased in snow areas in February, as well as a significant surge in firefighter covid cases. We actually thought that covid was on a down slope in fiscal year 2020 and 2021, but the fire department experienced an uptick in covid related illness in fiscal year [10:27:15 AM] related illness in fiscal year 2021 and 2022. Another short ice event took place in February, as well as summer heat, the summer heat and limited rain or no rain led to an up staffing and wildfire preparedness. In other words, when we noticed that there was an uptick in heat related weather events as well as limited to no or little rain, we staff our wildfire unit up in preparation of a wildfire occurring that may have took place, but fortunately for us, did not take place in the city of Austin limits. However, we had wildfire deployment in other jurisdictions and around the state to support the wildfire effort. I want to note that our overtime for deployment is was reimbursed reimbursed in full, but there's a delay or was a delay to the following fiscal year to get full reimbursement [10:28:17 AM] year to get full reimbursement for deployment, which caused us to have additional overtime costs, as well as the green would show an uptick in summer vacation use because once the covid vaccine and other covid related illness went down, our members decided to take vacation and we encouraged them to take vacation. The vacation day was not used in the previous fiscal year, but they needed a time off from work and they took the vacation, as well as workman's comp. We thought that the injuries was going to decrease, but we noticed an an uptick in injuries in the fire service. So we actually thought injury was going to be down, but it was actually an increase in injuries, whether it was on the job or off the job. Fiscal year 2022 to 2023. We were hit with another winter storm. Winter storm Mario and with more ice related. And we also had another [10:29:19 AM] related. And we also had another year of record breaking heat, again, to cause the fire department to be prepared for deployment around the state, as well as for deployment here in in the city limits, which caused us to have an uptick in staffing to be prepared for those wildfire related issues. During that same fiscal year, the city of Austin ordered the Austin fire department overtime challenges. I'm going to talk a little bit about that later, but I want to just bring out that we had an audit of our overtime to do a comparison and contrast to what we're doing and are not doing related to overtime. I talked about the increase in injuries in fiscal year 2021 2022, but injuries continue to rise in fiscal year 2022 and 2023. On and off duty injury. I do not believe that was necessarily related to covid, but we had injuries also in that in that fiscal year of 2022 and [10:30:21 AM] in that fiscal year of 2022 and 2023, we had parental paid leave and members used that leave, which caused use in overtime as well. These are some factors involved in overtime. Now, I realize that injuries in the Austin fire department is one of the causes for overtime. We're working hard on reducing injuries. I'm gonna talk about that on this slide here. So let me add that measures to reduce our overtime. For example, the city of Austin overtime audit that I have a copy here I'm quite sure I hope you all have seen I just want to read something real quick about what this audit said about the Austin fire department. Overtime. On the first page, it said that the Austin fire department overtime decisions reflect practices to reduce overtime costs identified in other audits of firefighters overtime. In other words, as I interpret this, it's saying that what the Austin fire department has done to reduce overtime is [10:31:22 AM] has done to reduce overtime is in correlation with cities around the state or the country. It also states that on page nine that as a result, the only type of leave the Austin fire department can reasonably influence is sick leave and accidents. What does that mean? That means that we are looking at ways to enhance our city policies as it relates to members taking sick leave. In other words, if we show a pattern of member using sick leave every Saturday, then we're going to notify that member to change their behavior. We show a pattern of member using sick leave before or after holidays. We're going to notify that member to change that behavior. And those are the first start of revising our sick leave use policy. So that's an ongoing analysis of backfield we're looking deeper into prior to the utqg that the city implemented, we used to hire based on the [10:32:23 AM] we used to hire based on the lowest pay. Now we hire based on the lowest hours. The firefighter with the lowest hours may not be the firefighter with the lowest pay. Now that's good for safety, but it's not necessarily good for saving money. But safety comes first over money. They may add that we're going to continue to review the use of sick leave policy, which I said earlier, and we have taken steps dealing with our deployment and other jurisdictions. In other words, I notified the state that the Austin fire department will no longer deploy our members if it takes up to one year to get reimbursed. So during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 24, we stopped all deployment. The state responded, we start receiving our reimbursement within 90 days of deployment. So now we are back deploying our members to support the mission of the state workman's comp cases, along with ready to [10:33:24 AM] cases, along with ready to rebound, go hand in hand. We have partnered with the hr department and workman's comp department to find out what can we do when those mandatory members are off on injury to get them to return back to work in the most safe and efficient manner? We have some challenges to our cadet hiring process. So what we decided to do when we give a written exam, we give the oral exam or other exam on the same day to try to minimize the time it takes to hire someone. We have even gone as far as to reassign some of our full time employees from a staff assignment back into operation, because operation is our biggest drive for overtime use. I'm going to close by saying that the mission of the fire service or the paradigms keep shifting the fire service. We started off as just fighting fires and getting cats out of trees. Now [10:34:24 AM] getting cats out of trees. Now we do more than that. We involve in emergency medical service, trench rescue to hazardous materials, special operation, homeland security and pandemics. We don't know what's waiting for us around the corner, but I stand here to share with you and encourage you that whenever the next disaster happens, whatever it may be, human caused a natural cause. The Austin fire department stands at the ready and we are ready to respond. That end my presentation, and I'm going to stand here for any questions that you may have. >> Thank you. Chief, I think before we take questions, I'm going to give Bob nix, who heads up our fire association, a few minutes to speak to the extent that you can keep it to the three minutes of public speakers, that'd be appreciated. And then we can ask you questions. If there's more that we need to ask from you, come up at the same time. >> But no, no, I want to start by thanking you, Allison, and [10:35:25 AM] by thanking you, Allison, and you Leslie, for your service. Over the years, you've really proved that the ten one system does work, and you guys are great examples of that. You've been great fun friends to firefighters and public safety and great for the community. So thank you for your service and don't include any of that in my three minutes. But fair enough. I wanted to start out by saying there's some real positive things going on. If you could put up the presentation again, please. On page three, if you include the cover page, there's a big category yellow on injury time. And I just want to really thank Susan Saenz. And this is and really labor and management, police, fire and ems we've gotten together. We figured out some ways to navigate worker's comp a little bit differently. It's not institutionalized yet, but in fire department we've reduced our injuries from 70 our lost lost time injuries down to about 30. This happened over about a three month period. It's a significant savings cost. Every person that's off is $1,300. A shift in overtime cost. So I stay by the microphone so we can hear, [10:36:26 AM] microphone so we can hear, sorry, I want to start off with a positive note. I think I think this presentation, if you go to page two now please, I think the chief did a great presentation on here. He's talking about staffing ratios. I want to drive that point home a little bit more. Austin fire department has staffing ratios about 0.25. We're hiring new stations now. 2.3 take a long time to get up to 2.3. And I really want to, you know, compliment ems. They do a really great job on this. They have a staffing ratio of about 0.26, about 0.5, double what we have. And what that does is it builds resiliency. So when they have things come up, they can cover it with additional personnel and not have to go into hire overtime. If you would do the calculation and move our staffing ratio from 0.25 to 0.5, our overtime would be close to zero. So that's a significant thing to discuss. And council addressing that council member alter. Ryan alter you helped us with and everybody in council supported this hiring more [10:37:26 AM] supported this hiring more firefighters. And there's a couple ways that we need to do that for. It really comes down to an additional class at least once a year for the next 3 to 5 years. And I want to compliment you on your budget. Writer Allison alter, I believe there's some real opportunities there in converting overtime costs to ftes, as long as it's done thoughtfully and careful of all the different side effects. So I really think I think staffing ratios are very important to look at. I also want to just remind everybody that when we increase the hiring of cadets last year, we have not increased the authorized strength. And I think that was a promise to be done in this later this year. I want to remind everybody of that, and I want to encourage us to continue to support the additional cadet class each year for either workload reduction in terms of workweek reduction or getting more firefighters on the streets. So we have more resiliency when these programs come up. That's my message. I'm happy to stand for any questions. [10:38:28 AM] questions. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Thank you. So colleagues will take questions just for anyone who's watching. I also want to welcome our new hcm of our public safety, Mr. Eddie Garcia, you don't have to come speak, but I just wanted to welcome you to our audit and finance meeting. Colleagues, do others have questions? Okay, so what? >> I hear you first. >> You want to hear mine first? Okay. So I had an opportunity to talk with several folks about this offline. So I've asked some of my questions. We really tried to focus today on kind of how we got where we are and, and some of the things that are, that are going on there. There is a second phase of this which is, you know, really diving into the numbers. Now that we understand the problem, to understand, you know, what numbers of firefighters, we would need to potentially offset the overtime [10:39:29 AM] potentially offset the overtime and whether the statements that that Mr. Nix made about having that additional ratio would, in fact, end up with cost savings and or less burden on our firefighters, who we know are also suffering some from some some implications from working at such high levels to their health, both physical and mental. And so the next step after we have this understanding of what's going on, is really, you know, to examine whether more people is also part of the situation and all of these other steps also are good in that direction. I did want to ask, what is exceptional vac mean on this? >> Is it exceptional vacation? Is the vacation they receive during holidays. If I say that correctly, work when they work the holidays. So when a member work on a holiday, Christmas, [10:40:30 AM] work on a holiday, Christmas, new years, etcetera, they receive exceptional vacation time. >> Okay, so a lot of this is, you know, the there's a good chunk over 40% that is just vacation time, which we ought to be able to plan for in our overtime. But it's a pretty large chunk in there. But we also have, you know, the injuries and the and the sick buckets are still, you know, too large and I'm glad to hear that we're seeing the benefits of the workers comp. And I'm hopeful that when you get to the end of this fiscal year, you won't be having to rejigger your overtime budget to the same degree. But for my colleagues, I do want to point out there are some real consequences when they do that, when they have to pull the overtime from other buckets, that means less resources are spent on wildfire, less resources on potentially child [10:41:31 AM] resources on potentially child safety, less resources on getting folks their their code applications or their permitting done in as timely a fashion as possible as well, because some folks have to go into operations, we won't be adding yet another. I mean, we're adding a station in January, but that is planned in. There won't be another one coming at least for a few years, because it takes time to do that. So there will be some catch up from that as well. But chief and Mr. Garcia, I really do want to challenge you to continue to work with the unions to address this, working with H.R. Taking this very seriously, we did so in 2017, which is not on this chart. We had a 13 million or something. I may have the wrong number. My head is 13 million. Whether it was or three, I don't remember. But we had a really, really large number when I first came in on council because of vacancies, and we were able to address that and it went down. [10:42:32 AM] address that and it went down. We have to keep an eye on the overtime. I do hope that the new assistant city manager will be holding our public safety departments to account for their overtime and monitoring it in ways, perhaps, that we haven't been doing as much so that we can really stay on this and reduce the amount of overtime. That overtime, again, is both a fiscal and an operational challenge. And it also impacts the well-being of our firefighters, our medics or or our officers. So I hope we can continue this work and address address both the overtime, but also the promises that have been made in our fire contract that we need to be prepared for that. Council member Ryan alter's amendment helps us move towards. >> Thank you, councilmember funds. >> Thank you. Can you remind us, chief, what was the overtime [10:43:32 AM] chief, what was the overtime expenditure amount this last fiscal year? >> I believe this last fiscal year, it was 15 million, 15.8 million. >> That was the amount of budgeted. >> And the final budget was 13.1 million, 13.1 million budgeted. >> But we went over by a couple million. Yes. Okay. And for this fiscal year, 25, what are we budgeted for? >> Overtime 13.1 million okay. >> With the I appreciate the presentation. Thank you for outlining some changes that the department will be undertaking to reduce costs and overtime. You mentioned that we are going to notify members if there if there is a firefighter who is taking sick, sick leave on Saturdays, you know, regularly you'll notify them. But like, do you is this do you have a dedicated staff member in your department that's going to be taking a look at this, or is that an hr? How is that process working? >> Thank you for that. We are working on a policy as we speak [10:44:33 AM] working on a policy as we speak to try and design for an example, if firefighter baker has station two and there's no firefighter baker at station two, but if firefighter baker has station two shows a pattern of always calling in sick the day before payday or the day after payday, then that company officer would notify firefighter baker and say, hey, you are showing a frequent use of sick leave the day before or the day after sick. If it happened again, you will be required to bring in an adopted excuse because. >> Yeah, and thank you. I understand you're developing a policy, but I mean, is there is that someone in your division that's going to be taking a look at those requests, or is that a software that you'll be utilizing, or is that a contractor or consultant that you're bringing in? >> It's something we're doing internally. We're trying to figure out the system, how we're going to do it, but we're not bringing in a contractor to do that. I believe we have the bandwidth within our organization to monitor sick leave uses on a company level. [10:45:33 AM] leave uses on a company level. So we don't I don't have the exact formula or answer to that, but this is a work in progress. But I'm quite sure we'll have a tool, whether it be the utqg tool or some type of data that we that software that we design to make that work. >> Okay. But there was enough of, I guess, is this a standard practice amongst other fire departments to do this type of review of leave policy? >> Yes. Well, my previous department, we used it and it worked. >> Okay. Okay. So you had previous experience. Yes. Okay. Good deal. And with these recommended or these measures that you're presenting to us that you'll be employing for the department to reduce overtime, how much do you think. And I mean, I know this is an estimation, but how much do you think this will help us in reducing overtime expenditures? >> I don't have a percentage, but I will add that I want to say about three months ago we [10:46:35 AM] say about three months ago we had 3 or 4 months ago we had 75 people off either on injury or sick leave. I think now we have about 50 off. So it's working with the counseling and follow up with our members. Behavior change and monitoring how the injury occurs. So our health and wellness department have become more aggressive. I would like to say and follow up with these members to make sure they return back to work. It's not my goal to rush them back to work. I want them back at 100%, but we're doing a much better job in monitoring their return to work, as well as monitoring behaviors. That is taking time for people to come back to work. >> Okay. >> But at the very least, perhaps these measures will at least get us to more closer to the budgeted amount of the 13 million for overtime. >> That's an assumption, but keep in mind we have so many unpredictable events, whether it [10:47:37 AM] unpredictable events, whether it be weather related, whether it be a demonstration that take place that we had to call in additional personnel to monitor. And those unpredictable events are not budgeted. We don't budget for a hot summer. We don't budget for a winter storm event. But keep in mind, during the last winter storm, our members made it to work. Some of them walked to work in the storm because they couldn't drive to work. So I commend them for their commitment to the city of Austin and the Austin fire department. So again, when that disaster happened, the members of the Austin fire department are more than willing to put themselves in harm's way. And those unpredictable events cost money. >> So which is why we budget for the overtime. Yes. Right. We understand. Certainly we want to provide we want to assure the safety of our firefighters and the safety of our community. [10:48:38 AM] the safety of our community. That is top priority for us, and that's why it's included in the budget that we adopt. I just want some, you know, semblance or reassurance that the measures you're proposing are done. So with the lens in mind that you're trying to get us more to the budgeted amount that we are, that we approved for overtime pay, not only I'm trying hard, like council member Alison alter mentioned about the city manager office, we've been charged and challenged by the city manager's office as well as the budget office. >> My words, not their words. Get our act together. Get our act together. I said my words, not their words. So we have accepted the challenge, and we look at it as more of an opportunity than a challenge to do all we need to do to change behaviors in the fire department, and those behavior change, I believe, will help us if not meet our budget for the overtime. >> Thank you. >> Thank you chief. >> Okay. [10:49:39 AM] >> Okay. >> All right. I think we'll move on if there are no more. Did you have your question? Okay, so we will move on. Thank you. Thank you, chief, and thank you, Phoenix as well for being here. We are going to take up item seven, the status of recommendations by the city auditor in audit reports. >> Good morning. Council members, Jason Darby, deputy city auditor here to talk to you about the status of audit recommendation implementation. As you may recall, we're about a year, a little over a year into the new process using our new system mission Marc. And we have been doing a semiannual update, more or less. We have two bodies of or two populations of recommendations that I'll be presenting on those that are in mission Marc dating back to 2019. And then we have some pre mission Marc recommendations from 2014 to 2018. And as you can see on this slide, the numbers are showing that it was a good decision to switch to following up on every single [10:50:40 AM] following up on every single recommendation and utilizing this new system. We've more than doubled the recommendations that are implemented since we started this process in October of last year. We increased the number of recommendations that we've implemented from our presentation in April. By almost 20, the number of not started recommendations are all recent recommendations that were issued over the course of this summer. So there is a lot of progress happening both within the departments that are receiving these recommendations and from our audit staff that are monitoring their implementation and seeing that they get that they get implemented, and testing the evidence to make sure that they are, in fact, implemented. Moving over to the pre mission Marc recommendations, we've also seen some progress. It's not quite as as rapid as those that are in mission Marc. It makes sense. These are older. Some of these are as much as ten years old. The staff that are working in the departments to implement these may not have been here during the course of the audit. The auditors that are looking at these recommendations for from a [10:51:42 AM] these recommendations for from a monitoring perspective also were not here. So it takes a little bit more time. But we are seeing progress. We've implemented 11 recommendations since the last time that we spoke. We did return 15 from a ready for review status to in progress, but that is just ensuring that everything is thoroughly documented. So there is progress being made. We're going to keep working to get those over the line and, and, and work through this backlog as quickly as we possibly can. So that is our status in a nutshell, and I'm happy to take any questions that you might have. >> Thank you. Colleagues. Any questions. So Mr. Darby, thank you for developing this system and the auditor's office. I think it's really been very helpful for us in monitoring where the recommendations are. It's really, really important that when the auditor's office is making these recommendations that they get implemented. And I appreciate that. The city manager's office has been [10:52:42 AM] manager's office has been leaning in to get to get this done. I do want to just talk a little bit about if there are pending recommendations that are of concern to the auditor's office that should be raised to the committees. >> Certainly we have a lot of recommendations that are that are important. I you know, we're paying attention to all of them, but some that that stand out above the rest relate to it it security. We brief you on those in executive session. Those are confidential. We can't talk about those publicly. But I feel like you're pretty up to date on those given given recent presentations. The other set of recommendations that I would call attention to are those from our disaster preparedness audit, especially as we head into winter. Those relate to how we're responding to catastrophic events like winter storms. We've I think we issued ten recommendations. One of those is implemented. A couple just moved into ready for review, and the remaining the remaining [10:53:42 AM] remaining the remaining recommendations are, I think three are in ready for review and the remaining six are in progress. We're working with staff to push those forward, but those are the ones that that stand out to us as, as more critical. >> Thank you. So council member Fuentes and alter, presuming you're on this committee next year, those emergency preparedness recommendations are really important and they need to be followed up on. So one of them is kind of an all encompassing one that's making sure that we are following up on recommendations from various after action reports and, and kind of following those checks. And if that doesn't happen, we end up in a situation where we were in storm uri, where there were things that were recommended that we had done in those prior action reports that were not done that caused us problems. And so just want to flag those for you to be on the [10:54:44 AM] flag those for you to be on the lookout, particularly for those heesom recommendations. There are several of them, and I know both of you have have been concerned about our disaster preparedness and prep. And so there is work to be done there in implementing those past corrective actions. And then there's also a section, I don't know if we have anybody from heesom here, do we? Oh, great. I would also like to know where we are at. One of the recommendations that I'm not sure where it is after the new submissions, but has to do with developing a formal plan for involving the community in disaster preparedness and planning. And I know there's been some steps taken in that that we have staff in charge. But if you could speak please to that briefly and what we're doing on that, appreciate it. >> Sure. Yeah. One item of note, the recommendation related to prior corrective actions is one of those that just on Monday moved to ready for review [10:55:46 AM] moved to ready for review status. So it's now in our queue and we'll be testing that as soon as possible. >> Great. >> Thank you. And if there's anything else you'd like to add. >> Good morning. Thank you. I'm Sarah Henry. I'm the interim chief administrative officer with the office of homeland security and emergency management. Director Wilson is at jury duty today. So thank you for the question. And thank you for having us here to be able to speak to these items. What I would say is that on all of the items, heesom has made incremental progress over the last two years. As you're aware, we have been in a space where we've had interim leadership and new interim city management leadership or new permanent city management leadership. So we are all working closely together to prioritize these items and move them forward. One specific item that I'd like to highlight as as a point of success, is the item related to language access. Over an 18 month period, we were able to put together a language access working group that included members of both city [10:56:46 AM] included members of both city staff from across the org, from across the enterprise, as well as community organizations who support immigrant communities. And we were able to put together a plan, have the plan reviewed, and have begun implementing the plan so much. And so over the last several months, as we've been implementing that plan, we've offered preparedness training to the community in English, Spanish, pashto and mandarin. So this is just one example where we've been able to prioritize these audit recommendations and move the needle forward in a meaningful and impactful way to the community. So as we move forward with these other items, we will continue to prioritize working through the items and putting in place an implementation process to meet the needs of both council and the community, specifically to the item that you brought up. Council member. Alter. We have also put in place a new mass care team. We've also, over the last several months, put in place a new Austin resilience network, which this body has been briefed on, [10:57:47 AM] this body has been briefed on, or the council body has been briefed on. You also heard this week the city's preparedness plan for winter weather. So while that might not directly be shown in the detailed progress of the audit report, a large amount of progress has been made to ensure that the community and the city is ready for winter weather preparedness. We will continue to work with the city manager's office on these items and on our task in general to ensure the community is safe before, during and after an emergency and we look forward to providing you with future updates. >> Thank you. Over the course of this audit process, I think council member tovo initiated, I was a co-sponsor. Others may have been on the dais, may have been part of it for the for the audit that we had. One of the things that we did was provide you with staffing and resources. So where do you know where you are at in terms of the staffing levels? >> We currently have one [10:58:47 AM] >> We currently have one vacancy. I believe that is in the process of being filled. It's deep in the interview process. And then of course people will move on, move into departments. So there might be other vacancies coming up just based on the natural form of attrition, but based on the available positions that we have, I believe there's only one current vacancy. Great. >> That's great news. And are there particular resources that you need? I mean, we're asking you to do a lot with these recommendations. Wanted to check in and see if there were resources that the department need. And you may not be prepared to talk about that right now, but if you are, we'd love to hear the question. >> What I would say is we're working closely with the city manager's office to understand our priorities and ensure that we're working with the resources we have to be successful. >> Okay, great. >> Thank you. Colleagues, any other questions? Great. >> Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you again for building this system. And I look forward to seeing all the pre-mission [10:59:48 AM] to seeing all the pre-mission Marc items off shortly and continued success in helping us to monitor more clearly our audits. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. I'm just going to just to make sure that we stay on time, we are going to take up item item eight, and then we're going to go to ten and 11 and back to nine. So if we can have item eight come up Mr. Molloy please. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Council members I'm Brian Molloy, I'm the chief of investigations at the office of the city auditor. And for my presentation today, I'll be going over fiscal year 24 integrity unit activities. So over the course of this presentation, I'll talk about the allegation trends that we saw over the course of the fiscal year, the investigations [11:00:48 AM] fiscal year, the investigations my team has completed, and then what ongoing investigative activities we currently have. So fiscal year 24 turned out to be a very busy year for allegations coming into our office. Our prior three year average was around 312 allegations coming in in this last year, 380 actually came in. That's a 22% increase over the average. And the bulk of that increase actually happened in the summer. Summer tends to be our busiest month for allegations coming in. This summer was just exceptionally busy when I came and spoke before all of you. About seven months in the year, we were on pace for about 300 or so allegations coming in, and then in those intervening months, it went all the way up to this 380. What's driving this change? It's hard to tell. The allegations are coming across citywide departments pretty evenly across the same topics that we normally see. It's been recently pointed out to me, there was a transition in city leadership around around the summer, and that could be driving some of it, but it's still something we need to look into to figure out exactly why fiscal year 24 had [11:01:49 AM] exactly why fiscal year 24 had such a big increase, and is that an increase that's going to continue, or will we go back down to prior levels is something we'll have to see over the next year of the allegations? Looking at the jurisdictional breakdown, this did stay consistent with what we've seen in prior years. 39% of the allegations that came in were things that my team could look into because they were within our jurisdiction, that core function of fraud, waste and abuse investigations and violations of city code. And the bulk of those were in misuse, which 37 deception and misrepresentation, 33 allegations came in that that houses fraud. If you ever see an investigation of ours that finds a fraud investigation, it started under that category 31 abuse and 17 theft. That theft category includes timesheet theft, inventory theft and cash theft. Of the remaining 61 allegations, they were all outside our jurisdiction. The largest majority of those are hr related issues, which does include harassment, discrimination, retaliation. Those get referred out to individual departments or the human resource department. The next largest category was operational issues, and those [11:02:49 AM] operational issues, and those went to the various departments across the city. But again, this jurisdiction jurisdictional breakdown is very consistent with what we've seen over the last 5 or 6 years. So while overall allegations went up, how they broke down remained very consistent. Then a goal of ours is to make it as easy as possible for people to share their concerns with our office. We're not going to be able to solve problems unless we hear about those problems. And one way to make sure people can reach out to you is by giving them a lot of different ways to reach out. We try to make it as easy as possible by having an online reporting form an email. You can use, a hotline, you can call a physical dropbox. We have auditors conducting audits at all throughout the city, and they make sure to connect with people and ask them if they have any concerns they want to bring back to my team. Of all those mechanisms, 66% of our allegations came through the online reporting form that's consistently been in the our leading way that people come to us and in the in the mid 60 percents. Next most common was actually direct investor contact. So that's someone directly calling or emailing me or one of the investigators on my team. I appreciate that [11:03:51 AM] my team. I appreciate that number being a relatively large chunk, because it means people trust our office and are willing to reach out to us directly, rather than using any of our other means. Another way, you got to make sure that your system works to increase allegations coming in is to allow people to report anonymously. This is something we've seen over the last five years that about two thirds of our informants want to come to us anonymously, and 64% were this year. So that number has been pretty consistent. All right. Allegations by department. In previous years, whenever I did a full fiscal year, I would just break it down by percentage of allegations which departments were involved in the city. And that's that number you see over on the left hand side there. Parks and rec had 12% Austin energy, Austin water had 8%. That makes sense. They're both pretty large departments in the city, something I started just this fiscal year. So when I came to you guys to speak to you all in the spring, I started looking at allegations per 1000 employees, that's a better way to get an apples to apples comparison about which departments are seeing the most allegations. It's a good way to standardize [11:04:52 AM] It's a good way to standardize everything when you look at it that way. On the right side of this slide, animal services actually had the most allegations per 1000 employees, with 87, followed by building services 77, human resources 72, the citywide average. If you look at every department based on allegations per 1000 employees, is 16 allegations. And just for comparison, it had, I continued just looking at things based on percentage. If you look back over at the left hand side, parks and rec, Austin and water, Austin energy, they were they're both right around or below the city average with 12 allegations per 1000, 17 and 12 again. So I think it's going to be much more useful to identify where are their problem areas in the city by looking at it. Allegations per 1000 employees. My team, what are we going to do with this information now that we're looking at it that way? That's that's a good question. While looking at allegations per 1000 employees as an industry best practice, that's come to my attention. That's why I started doing it this way. There's just not a lot of information about what people do with it after the fact. Allegations are something [11:05:53 AM] fact. Allegations are something that a lot of companies, private sector likes to keep quiet. A lot of other government agencies aren't as transparent about their numbers as we are. So looking for comparisons like what's a good number is 16 across the city per 1000 employees. Is it high? Is it low? It's hard to figure out with comparison. So that's something I'm going to be diving into. As we continue to report on this number. I also have plans to work with the new chief ethics and compliance officer, who's got hopefully more time to look at things in a preventative manner than my team. We're pretty busy responding to those 380 allegations that came in, but I'll be working with the ethics and compliance officer to go over this data and figure out what needs to be communicated to other city leaders in these departments, you know, do they have problems? Are there ways they can get ahead of these allegation trends? So problems to be solved in the future at this point? All right. Moving on to investigations. We completed in 24. We had eight investigations completed this year. That's a little bit below our normal average. We're usually closer to 12. We're back on pace for fiscal year 25 to be [11:06:54 AM] on pace for fiscal year 25 to be back up at 12 or more investigations. Of those eight, five were substantiated and resulted in a public report that's posted on our website. Two had inconclusive findings, meaning we couldn't say one way or the other. There just wasn't enough evidence to say something bad happened or something bad did not happen. And then one was unsubstantiated. So we collected enough evidence to say there was no violation of city code in that matter. Of the five that ended in a public report, they're all listed, right? Right here. The departments were able to take accountability action based on our findings and the evidence we gave them to support that accountability action for four of the five matters, the accountability action was employee separation. One of them is pending. That was our the last case to finish in fiscal year 24. That department is taking action this week. I'm just waiting to get an effective date so I can update that from pending to what their plan is, which is employee separation. And then what my team is still working on. As of right now, we have 12 open investigations [11:07:55 AM] have 12 open investigations across eight different departments. And it's those standard issues we've been seeing and reporting on over the last several years fraud, abuse, misuse of city resources and conflicts of interest. And with that, that concludes my presentation. I'm happy to take any questions you all might have. And then for everybody else watching, here are the different ways you can get a hold of my office. If you have any concerns we should know about, thank you. >> That's important that we share those hotline information. If you can keep that up for just a second more, that'd be great. Colleagues, any questions or comments? Great. Well, thank you, Mr. Mueller, I appreciate it. >> Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. So before we go to the strategic plan, which may be a longer conversation, if that's okay, we're going to go to item ten because there's a couple of things that have to get done today because council member pool and I won't be here. So if we can take item ten up, please first. Thank you. Good morning. >> Good morning. Good morning. Chair alter. Vice chair pool [11:08:57 AM] Chair alter. Vice chair pool council members. I'm Kara Calaycay, the city's chief information officer and ctm department director, and I am joined today by H.R. Director Susan signs, assistant H.R. Director Rebecca Kennedy, and deputy chief financial officer Diana Thomas. Today, I'll provide a brief briefing relevant to item number ten, the citywide human capital management system. This project is part of a larger digital transformation strategy to modernize key systems that are the foundation of the essential services we provide as a city. The purpose of this strategy is to provide simple, secure and accessible digital experiences through our investment in modern technology solutions. This transformation occurs in three categories community digital experience, employee digital experience, and digital city business. Today, we'll focus on the digital city business we [11:09:58 AM] the digital city business we will conduct with our new human capital management system. Workday. Workday is a cloud based enterprise resource management system that will leverage for our human capital management system. At the completion of this project, we'll have a system that integrates core hr functions with payroll. It standardizes hr business processes across the city. We'll have eliminated numerous manual and paper processes throughout the city. We'll be able to efficiently provide hr related reports using trusted quality data from a single source of truth. And we'll also improve the employee experience with smoother onboarding processes and will provide a full suite of manager and employee self-service capabilities. The new system will bring changes in several key areas, so our core human capital management is basically [11:10:59 AM] capital management is basically a one stop shop where you can get real time org charts. We'll be able to see activities around the hiring process. We'll see be able to review compensation, get standard and ad hoc reports, and many other self-service options like changing personal information, details on earnings statements and w-2s, and specific to the onboarding and offboarding processes, we'll have personalized, automated processes for joining and leaving the city. We'll be able to more effectively manage absences. Specialized absence leaves like fmla. Our benefits providers will be integrated into the system so that we'll can see benefits in one place. We'll see all the components of our compensation and pay. We'll be able to leverage learning modules that will enable the [11:12:01 AM] modules that will enable the city to organize and deliver training courses and programs to staff, and track the progress and completion of those courses. Payroll will be processed through the workday system. Our recruiting process will be seamless, consistent, and provide a positive experience from candidate to employee. And then our talent management module will allow us to more easily monitor our succession planning and our performance review process. I want to emphasize how we've approached the implementation with a focus on the user experience. We want to make the experience simple and secure, and make sure that the employees have confidence in the system. We've spent quite a bit of time validating that we have high quality data that's available and ready for use. There's been a focus on [11:13:03 AM] There's been a focus on collaboration and inclusion, with involvement through the city from design, testing, communications and training. So we have successful organizational adoption and we have alignment with industry best practices. We've adopted a common citywide approach so that we streamline hr processes and work. In terms of impacts to the city. We're shifting from one system. We're shifting to one system. We'll have one source of truth available to everyone in real time. We'll be retiring many internal systems. The current count is 11. We're eliminating paper based hr forms. Those processes will be automated. There's new terminology and concepts that we'll be sharing with the workforce. That basically is a terms crosswalk, so that people will be able to understand how [11:14:04 AM] will be able to understand how they map their present work and present state to the new terms and future state and workday. Employees will receive notifications through workday, through the system itself, through mobile devices, and through email. That will be their choice. And then managers will be able to monitor and review key information about their direct reports and teams. We started work with Accenture, our implementation partner, in January of 2023, and our go live is planned for June of 2025 next year. Right now, we're doing payroll parallel testing that's in progress. That compares the payroll generated in our legacy system today against workday. To ensure accuracy, we have a change ambassador network that has been established with representatives from around the [11:15:06 AM] representatives from around the departments so that we have a successful change management initiative. And we have a training team and plan identified and documented so we can effectively train the workforce communications about that, the training and communications about workday will be coming out much more frequently as we move towards transition to the new system. And with that, I'll take any questions. >> Colleagues, any questions. So I'll just say that I'm very excited for this system to finally be in place. It's taken a long time to get to the electronic timesheets and to this system, and I hope it meets the enterprise's needs and really facilitates a lot of projects. I do have one question. I wanted to follow up on a council policy that was passed quite a while ago, that has not yet been implemented, and I wanted to know what is the [11:16:07 AM] and I wanted to know what is the timing on modifying the leave accrual rates for employees that leave and then come back to the city? This was passed in 2022, and it says that leave accrual rates should be based on an employee's full city of Austin tenure, not their continuous tenure, so that employees who leave the city and then return have all their years of service counted toward their leave. Accrual rate. This was passed over two years ago. We received a memo in may of 23, a year and a half ago stating they were waiting for workday implementation, which should be complete in the fall of 24. We're now in fall of 24. It's still not implemented. Can you please provide an update on when that policy will be implemented? And I think Rebecca is there to step in. >> Council member yes, this is first and forefront of our design, and we are working with our design team to ensure that this is built in to when an employee leaves and comes back to the city that their entire time with the city is taken into account for not only their leave [11:17:07 AM] account for not only their leave accrual rates, but any ten year payments that we have, like our service incentive pay. >> Thank you. And is there any system for people who got stuck in this sort of limbo period since we passed it? Is there any recourse to address that? >> We have not thought through that at this point. Just when the system goes live is when this new process would start, and it is because it is a manual process at this time that we would have to go back and research many things, because our system is not designed currently to do this. And that's why workday we're very excited about. They have committed that they will help us figure out the solution for this, and that we will do it whenever we go live. >> Okay. I think there may be some offices that were involved in this that want to see if we can get it faster. For some people who've been in waiting for this to happen so that they can can be involved in city, city work for that. But thank you, I appreciate it. Great. Well, I hope I hope the [11:18:08 AM] Well, I hope I hope the implementation goes well and it meets the needs. There are a couple other folks listed here. Does anybody else need to speak on this from the staff who are here for this item? Okay. Thank you, thank you. We will take up item 11 which we're going to take up very quickly. So this was a discussion regarding the implementation of the billing system improvements. That was also in a resolution that I had. Chief Luckritz shared a memo with us describing that. And I want to underscore how important it is that we figure out the billing system for our physicians and our physician assistants, as well as continue our work to work with other entities in the community to support some of the innovative programs we have, like c4 and paramedic practitioners. Chief, I just wanted to ask you, you mentioned in the memo that there was a contract that you were working on to assist with this. [11:19:10 AM] working on to assist with this. Can you just describe kind of generally the scope of what you're looking for in that contract? Yes, absolutely. >> So what we're looking to do is to evaluate how it is that we could enter into potential agreements or contracts with various various payers. As you know, when we look at how it is that we can address reimbursements from various payers, we are restricted in certain areas with federal laws, medicare, medicaid and others. But when it comes to the private payers, there are potential opportunities. Historically in our industry, there has not been much movement or appetite, particularly in the public sector, towards developing agreements. Given the vast numbers of organizations and ambulance and ems agencies across this country. In comparison to the number of payers, the power gradient there is quite great. And so what we would like to do is to engage, and we're working through a scope of work, someone that can not just provide us with recommendations to move forward, [11:20:10 AM] recommendations to move forward, but assist us with implementation in determining the best way for us to develop relationships with payers and others to address things like treatment in place to address things. Quite frankly, everything not related to transport because transport is, is what has historically been our key and core business. But moving forward, we're seeing that the nature of our industry, the nature of ems, is to focus less on transportation and more on providing care to individuals with the right resource, whether it's paramedics, advanced practice paramedics, physician's assistants, community health paramedics and providing those services to individuals where they most need it, which very often is not in hospital emergency room. And so that is the scope is not just to provide us with recommendations, but to provide us with a plan of implementation and to assist us in that implementation and any negotiations or relationship building that needs to occur with some of those larger organizations. >> Thank you. It is, in my view, a real opportunity for funding some of these ems programs at a higher level to meet the access [11:21:11 AM] higher level to meet the access care as we as we have to find ways to address the care needs without sending people to the hospital. So I hope that that contract proves useful and that we can address as we launch some of these programs now going on four years and, well, not four years, three years. And it'd be great to be able to charge for the services that we're providing at an appropriate level, as well as address some of the other legislative issues at the federal level that prevent us from fully billing for our cost of service. So thank you, chief. >> Appreciate it. And if I could, just to thank you all as well. You all have been champions for our department and really challenged us to do better in our finances. And I'm very proud of the work that our team at ems has done in order to move that forward. But certainly we would not have accomplished it without your support and backing. So thank you to all of you. >> Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Before I go on, I, we had set this [11:22:12 AM] I go on, I, we had set this meeting going until 12 before we move to the strategic planning one. I just want to confirm that everyone has the time to have the discussion. Okay, great. So, miss Lang, item nine, please. >> Good morning. Council members. Kerri Lang, budget officer with the financial services department. I am happy to be here to talk about the citywide strategic plan and provide an update for that. Before I get started, I have to acknowledge and thank the teams that have been working on the strategic plan so far. The strategic plan team that has historically been led by Brett Sinclair, who has recently retired, and then the continuous improvement team, also in financial services, who has helped work on the workshops, and all of the pilot work that we've done over the last year to [11:23:12 AM] we've done over the last year to get us to this point in the strategic plan, as well as the teams across the city, the goal advancement teams that have been working. I get the privilege of coming up here and talking to you all about the plan, but there are teams across the city that have been working on this for the last several years, and I'm grateful for the work that they've done. And so we'll start off by just talking about the progress that we've made when we initiated the development of the plan, we made sure that we looked at the foundation that was developed with sd 23, and we also looked at the information that we received from the auditors in the 2023 audit report and recommendation on how to move the plan forward. And so we did that in creating the what is now the new citywide strategic plan. We've conducted workshops over the last several years, created goal advancement teams, as well as made sure that we looked at a way to make sure that the plan was scalable. So in the fall of 23, we started with a pilot program that went [11:24:14 AM] with a pilot program that went through the spring of 24 to help make sure that as we looked at how to implement and operationalize the plan, we did it in a way that was meaningful in moving the goals, measures, and strategies forward, as you all know. And thank you. The strategic plan was included in the fiscal year 25 budget. It was introduced in the 25 budget to the council and the community as a whole. And then since that time, we've been really working on the scaling based on the learnings that we've done or that we've received from the pilot program. So thinking about how we got here and what we've done, as I mentioned, we launched the pilot program, a team of nine stretch goal advancement teams worked on creating initiatives and work plans that could actually move the plan forward. The overall strategic plan forward. Based on some of those learnings, we created what we're now calling amp, the advancing measures and planning process for the [11:25:15 AM] planning process for the remainder of the teams, and we are moving forward with implementing that with the remainder of the 15 goals and measures and strategies that are included in the plan. We will continue to have workshops, and it really allows for the work to continue based on the vision and values that was established in sd 23. But like like the recommendations from the auditor's office, we included goals, measures and strategies that are really measurable that we can see how the work is moving forward for the plan. Looking at the current state, we have seven strategic priorities that inform goals and ultimately informs the work that is completed by the strategic plan. These priorities were were created in a reflection of the direction and priorities that council has indicated, through either formal action or direction to staff. These priorities were created to align [11:26:16 AM] priorities were created to align the established goals with council's direction and communities identified. Highest areas of focus. When you look at the different priority areas, you see that they align with just the conversations that we've had over the last several years. And then this slide also shows the number of goals by each priority area. I could go through the definitions of each, but it's a lot of that information in the established plan. You can see that plan in the budget document. I always take us back to the budget document, but we also have it in the financial transparency website of the city, where you can go in and see the full plan there. >> Miss Lang, you don't have to rush through it. We have time, but I just you don't you don't have to go through those pieces. But I just want you to not feel like you have to rush through the whole thank you, the whole presentation. >> I will slow down and breathe. Yeah. >> That was what I want to make sure you breathe. >> Yes. So looking at the pilot, kind of digging more into the [11:27:17 AM] kind of digging more into the work that we've done, this pilot really this this slide really talks about the strategies that were created by the pilot teams. As I mentioned, we created these pilot teams to figure out how we can scale the operationalizing of the plan and implement it fully across the city. And so these teams identified these strategies that are listed here. And I'll go into a little bit more detail in the next couple of slides to show how these strategies resulted in initiatives or work plans that many of these teams or all of these teams are moving forward as we speak right now. And so the first example that I want to give is a initiative or work work plan in the community health and sustainability priority. And this particular initiative is led by the parks and recreation department. It includes members from other departments as well, such as [11:28:17 AM] departments as well, such as transportation and public works, who is currently collaborating with pard to make sure that they look at access of programing in nearby parks. And what we really want to do throughout the plan is make sure that it was- collaborative, that it wasn't just one department working on an area because there are so many cross-functional work that has to be done that is usually not just one department making sure something is implemented. And so as we create these teams, we want to make sure that was one of the focuses this particular initiative is looking at enhancing equitable access to parks, trails and recreational opportunities by leveraging partnerships. So when we think about what happened in this pilot, we started out with workshops for workshops so that these teams can really dig into what should they do next. And this picture really shows some of the work that was done during the workshops, when the teams went through what we call how might we? So as they identified challenges, they looked at, how [11:29:18 AM] challenges, they looked at, how might we address these challenges as a team? As a team? Excuse me. And then from there, the teams really started working on what that initiative would be. So when we look at launching a pilot program to offer diverse recreational activities, this team really talked about started with looking at identifying where utilization was challenging across the city, where they needed to look at diversifying and creating inclusive programing and building collaborative partnerships to address where those gaps were. They also looked at what those partnerships should look like. So this team in particular has been working with aid. They've been looking at doing an overlay of through arcgis, of doing an overlay of where those gaps are. And they've been working on really creating some initiatives and work groups to look at what programing can be developed. And so we created milestones, action plans based on this initiative. [11:30:19 AM] plans based on this initiative. This team has launched some of the reporting that that they've been working on. And they are anticipating being able to implement some of these programs in these underutilized areas in the in the spring and summer. So they're still on target to show how this action is going to be finalized. And we're working on reporting out or creating reporting opportunities so that we can show how this initiative work leads to moving the strategy measure and ultimately the goals forward for this particular plan. Another example that we have is the work that is that is happening in the homelessness and housing area. And so this team really wanted to look at what approach they should, they should have or take in developing budget recommendations, launching a diversion program. I'm happy to report that through this work, [11:31:20 AM] report that through this work, you can see the fishbone exercise that was done in this in this team over the workshop period. But they also looked at what they created, a number of milestones and action plans that they wanted to do over the course of this project implementation. To date, they've completed one of their milestones and six of their action items. They've utilized the continuous improvement team to start working on the launch of a diversion program. By creating some criteria and solicitation to move this milestone forward. And they are working on establishing performance monitoring once the diversion program is created. So they're looking at implementation through development all the way through how this program will be implemented, as well as how we report out, again, the success of the program. These are just two of the programs or the goal advancement teams or initiatives we wanted to point out, but [11:32:21 AM] we wanted to point out, but several of the teams are moving their work forward, moving these initiatives forward based on the pilot that was created. Building services, for example, is focused on the health of city facilities. This team anticipates completing their first initiative by the second quarter of this fiscal year. So some teams are making a lot of good progress, some have a little bit slower progress, but we're still seeing some movement happen across the teams that are in place. When we created the pilot, we want to make sure we put in a space for us to receive feedback. As we looked at how we would scale this across the city. And so after each workshop, we did have surveys where we could get feedback for those from those who participated. We had an overwhelmingly positive response. But then we did address some of the challenges that were brought up in these workshops. Once the workshops were completed, the FSD team that led this this work also did [11:33:22 AM] that led this this work also did a retrospective. We had one of our partner departments who has quality improvement staff. They came in and helped us with this retrospective so that we can look at what things we can do differently, how we can make sure that as we're working on this, we're scaling it appropriately. And then we also asked the goal advancement owners and chairs to give us feedback as well, so that we can make sure that we are inclusive in our review and response. As as we're trying to create. What is the new process that will, will, that is moving forward with the rest of the teams? So based on all that feedback, based on all that learning that we've done, we created what we're calling the amp life cycle. We are a city that loves acronyms, so we thought we'd create one more. And so we created amp which is advancing measures and planning. It is the process that we're putting teams [11:34:22 AM] process that we're putting teams through to really create the next step of the strategic plan. It is an internal process that teams will do, will look at in order to one create the initiatives to show how those initiatives are being made actionable, collecting data and analyzing the work that's done, and then reporting that information out to the executive management. And ultimately, it will lead to what reports out, will, will see in our dashboard and in our reports out to council as a whole. So when we think about the next steps, we are working with the remaining teams on creating their work plans. Currently, we are also aligning departments key performance indicators to the strategic plan and strategic goals. So we're trying to make sure that the work that the departments are doing daily, that that they've operationalized, will help move the plan forward as well. Over [11:35:23 AM] the plan forward as well. Over the next several months, we will continue the work of the work plans and finalize those, and then begin the workshop series for the teams, as well as launch the dashboard that I mentioned earlier. We'll continue to refine the measures and strategies. And then as we keep moving forward in the mid-term, we'll look at how we can further integrate the plan into operations and into budget development. This is just a snapshot of the dashboard that is in development right now. We're working on launching that by the first quarter of calendar year 2025. We're really working to make sure that the dashboard is accessible. And so we've run into a couple of development snags, but we're taking a step back to look at how we can push something out that will be informational, transparent on our progress, and allow for stakeholders to see the work [11:36:25 AM] stakeholders to see the work that is really being done by the city. And then we're looking at the next steps of how we can further integrate the strategic plan and budget development. As I mentioned, and you all are well aware, it was published in the 25 budget. We're looking at comprehensive integration in the coming year, where we dive into what resources are needed to move the plan forward, making sure that we are showing clear connections between decisions that are being made and the progress on the plan. I think one of the wonderful things about how we've created the plan to date is that it is a live document that, you know, as we're looking at this, these action plans, we are really diving into what is working well or some challenges in the ways that things are working, that we may need to step back and look and say, okay, does this strategy work? Do we need to change this strategy? Do we need to make updates to the plan based on the progress that we've made? And so we'll continue to do that continuous improvement loop in this process. And in [11:37:26 AM] loop in this process. And in order to provide updates and changes as needed to the plan with the ultimate goal of moving the strategies and the goals forward based on the priority area. I said a whole lot. I tried to slow down, but I'm happy to answer any questions that you all may have. >> Thank you, miss Lang. That was very helpful. As usual, I'm going to call on council member Ryan alder who requested this first. >> Thank you very much and I appreciate this presentation is really helpful to see a little behind the scenes of what's going on. You and I have had many conversations about the strategic plan, and I think this is, you know, this is how a large organization should operate, right? You have to have goals. And those goals have to be well understood not only by those operating it, but so that we can share with the public to understand where our priorities are. And as you mentioned, those goals then feed straight into our budget decisions, which [11:38:27 AM] our budget decisions, which really have a direct impact on so many people in our community. So really, what I want to just ask or figure out how we do going forward, you know, the last public health committee, I suggested that we bring those areas of the strategic plan that are covered by that committee to have a discussion about what goals are have been set, or do we feel that they're appropriate? Do we feel that there are any that are missing? And I think that would be great for really all of our committees. I think we have not really had an opportunity as a body or even just, you know, the subgroups that our committees are to talk about these goals. I really appreciate the work that staff did to take the volume of work and really get it down to this set of goals. But I do think it would be helpful for us as a body to have a conversation about those various areas and [11:39:28 AM] about those various areas and talk about if we think there are appropriate measures, different measures that we want to see added or just have those conversations. So I, I think that will, you know, we can do that in the next year, but that would just be my one request going forward. >> Okay. Sounds good. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. I appreciate it. For our last two items, I'm going to call up miss stokes and you can take them in whatever order you would like. Excellent. I think. >> Diana's coming up here with me too. She just didn't know that until just now. So for. For today. So you guys, I think you guys know, but we have three committee members who are leaving the dais. And so this is their last meeting. Council [11:40:28 AM] their last meeting. Council member Kelly is not with us, but council member Alison alter and mayor pro tem Leslie pool have served on this committee for many, many years. Council member pool served as a member for, well, a member and then vice chair for a total of ten years. And council member. Alter has been with us the last six. >> I have lived here. Eight I've just been chair six. >> Chair six I feel like I checked these numbers, but that's fair. Yeah, but anyway, we've really appreciated the opportunity to work with you guys. And because I am, you know, auditors are notoriously nerdy, as are those finance people too. The way that we talk about audit findings, the way that we develop audits, is to develop a finding. And so this is the framework we use. And so we have criteria. What do we want from the situation condition. What does it look like. Cause how did it get that way. Usually if it's mismatched and then effect what does it mean for us. And so I just wanted to say a couple of words [11:41:29 AM] wanted to say a couple of words using the findings framework about my appreciation for you guys as members of this committee over the years. What we want is knowledgeable and dedicated members of this committee that are going to be emphasizing the things that we as a city really need to be focused on, and particularly for us in audit and finance roles. We want transparency. We want accountability, we want to be fiscally responsible, and we want the city to continuously improve in everything it does. So in this area, that's our criteria, our condition. You guys have been amazing, knowledgeable, dedicated leaders, lots of different, different areas of focus. But you've also been here providing oversight, hearing, audit results, results of our performance audits, our financial audits, appointing folks to our oversight boards of city owned entities, as well as our municipal civil service commission. Hearing things about our pension systems and overseeing commission bylaws requests so much there. There was a lot in that paragraph. But but really, you guys cover a [11:42:29 AM] but really, you guys cover a huge amount of territory. And I think because of your commitment, I think, to public service, but also to this role, we really have an improved system here in Austin and better services for our citizens. So we actually have a recognition audit report for each of you. It gets a little more specific about your individual contributions to the finance committee, although it seems like I may have an error to correct if I have you as six years instead of eight. So I need to verify that which I will do. So do you want to say anything to that? >> I just want to add, you know, it's been it's been wonderful working with all of you and knowing that sharing education along the way, what is it and how does it work? What is an acfr or an annual comprehensive financial report? Why do we have financial policies and why do we change them? So it's been very [11:43:30 AM] change them? So it's been very valuable to share these things with you, get your perspectives on how they work and collaborate together to make sure we make the city a better organization. So we're very proud to have worked with you all these years, and thank you so much. Thank you. >> Thank you guys. >> Thank you. Before you do your item 13, I just want to thank the both the finance staff and the auditor office, as well as Diana and Corey for leading us on this committee. I've learned so many things on this committee, some things I wanted to learn and some things I didn't know I wanted to learn. And we have done, you know, really important things with respect to the pensions and securing the pensions for our employees to, you know, the external audit on water that you ran, the work that we've done on disaster response as well as I guess we also should include the clerk's office in this process as well, you know, really stepping up to get some of the [11:44:32 AM] stepping up to get some of the processes for our commissions a little bit more streamlined and really creating this as a forum where we could bring some big issues as a space that when we needed to do follow up and have public conversations, we could have that. I want to thank my colleagues for showing up and participating in lots of things that I wanted to have on the agenda, some of which you didn't know you wanted to have on the agenda. And, you know, all of the staff who who makes this work happen. You know, we have the strong city organization that we do because of the work that the finance department does that the auditor's office, the clerk's office does. You know, that that really may not be the sexiest parts of what we do as a city, but are the parts that keep our bond rating, that keep us out of the news and allow us to address the risks. So thank you all. It's been a pleasure being able to work with with you [11:45:32 AM] being able to work with with you all. And, you know, miss stokes is a direct report of the councils. And as chair, I've had an extra opportunity to work with you and I've appreciated that as well. So thank you. >> Did you want to say that? >> I wanted to thank you guys for the really strong support that you have given this committee over the years, and for all the work that you've done that has improved our outlook and the level of education and knowledge that our community has about our different programs and operations. So I owe my thanks to you guys, and I know you'll continue doing great work going forward. >> So thank you. >> Just a quick thanks. I didn't even realize we're losing over 20 years of experience on this committee and a quorum no less. So hopefully council member Fuentes and I can fill these very large shoes and with some [11:46:32 AM] very large shoes and with some fresh faces. But know that we are on solid footing because of the work you all have done. So thank you very much. >> I understand there's a couple eager council member elects who want to be on this committee, so who who have a bent for governance and oversight. So I think you'll be in good hands. Great. Well, thank you very much. I don't know if you wanted to say anything for item 13. >> The only thing for future items is that we do have we have an approved calendar for 2025 with dates on there. Our next meeting, specifically because we no longer have a quorum of this committee, or we will not have a quorum for this committee in the new year. So February 19th is our first meeting of 2025. There's also a meeting scheduled for March that was accidentally on purpose, no accidentally scheduled. And so we'll actually be rescheduling that because it's during spring break, which was an accident. So one meeting right now for 2025 for sure. And then we'll figure out the [11:47:33 AM] then we'll figure out the schedule for the rest of it once we have a committee. >> Great. >> Thank you very much. And with that it is 1211 2024 at 11:48 A.M. And I am adjourning the audit and